Overview

The end of the world was only the beginning.

In his internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed novel The Passage, Justin Cronin constructed an unforgettable world transformed by a government experiment gone horribly wrong. Now the scope widens and the intensity deepens as the epic story ...

New York 2012 Hard cover First edition. First edition first printing New in new dust jacket. Signed by author. First edition first printing of the second novel in the Passage ...series. SIGNED by the author on a page tipped in by the publisher. In fine / fine unread condition. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 592 p. Passage Trilogy. Audience: General/trade.Read moreShow Less

New York, Ny 2012 Hardcover First Edition New in New jacket Book. Signed by Author(s) An Outstanding Copy-Signed By The Author On The Title Page. Signature Only. A First ...Edition, First Printing. Book Is In Fine Condition. Boards Are Clean, Not Bumped. Fore Edges Are Clean. Interior Is Clean And Legible. Not Remaindered. Dust Jacket Is In Fine Condition. Not Chipped Or Crinkled. Not Price Clipped. Dust Jacket Is Covered By Mylar Brodart. Thanks And Enjoy.Read moreShow Less

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Overview

The end of the world was only the beginning.

In his internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed novel The Passage, Justin Cronin constructed an unforgettable world transformed by a government experiment gone horribly wrong. Now the scope widens and the intensity deepens as the epic story surges forward with . . .

THE TWELVE

In the present day, as the man-made apocalypse unfolds, three strangers navigate the chaos. Lila, a doctor and an expectant mother, is so shattered by the spread of violence and infection that she continues to plan for her child’s arrival even as society dissolves around her. Kittridge, known to the world as “Last Stand in Denver,” has been forced to flee his stronghold and is now on the road, dodging the infected, armed but alone and well aware that a tank of gas will get him only so far. April is a teenager fighting to guide her little brother safely through a landscape of death and ruin. These three will learn that they have not been fully abandoned—and that in connection lies hope, even on the darkest of nights.

One hundred years in the future, Amy and the others fight on for humankind’s salvation . . . unaware that the rules have changed. The enemy has evolved, and a dark new order has arisen with a vision of the future infinitely more horrifying than man’s extinction. If the Twelve are to fall, one of those united to vanquish them will have to pay the ultimate price.

A heart-stopping thriller rendered with masterful literary skill, The Twelve is a grand and gripping tale of sacrifice and survival.

PRAISE FOR JUSTIN CRONIN’S THE PASSAGENamed one of the Ten Best Novels of the Year by Time and Library Journal, and one of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post • Esquire • U.S. News & World Report • NPR/On Point • St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Magnificent . . . Cronin has taken his literary gifts, and he has weaponized them. . . . The Passage can stand proudly next to Stephen King’s apocalyptic masterpiece The Stand, but a closer match would be Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.”—Time

“Read this book and the ordinary world disappears.”—Stephen King

“[A] big, engrossing read that will have you leaving the lights on late into the night.”—The Dallas Morning News

Passage Trilogy Series

What People Are Saying

From the Publisher

PRAISE FOR JUSTIN CRONIN’S THE PASSAGENamed one of the Ten Best Novels of the Year by Time and Library Journal, and one of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post • Esquire • U.S. News & World Report • NPR/On Point • St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Magnificent . . . Cronin has taken his literary gifts, and he has weaponized them. . . . The Passage can stand proudly next to Stephen King’s apocalyptic masterpiece The Stand, but a closer match would be Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.”—Time

“Read this book and the ordinary world disappears.”—Stephen King

“[A] big, engrossing read that will have you leaving the lights on late into the night.”—The Dallas Morning News

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

The opening chapter succinctly recaps the first novel in Justin Cronin's bestselling Passage Trilogy; the second drops readers into a page-turning literary thriller about three strangers attempt to survive in a chaotic world unhinged by a chemical experiment gone wrong.

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Cronin’s bloated apocalyptic thriller, like many a trilogy’s middle book, falls short of the high standard set by its predecessor, 2010’s The Passage. The struggle for survival between humanity’s last hope, personified by Amy Harper Bellafonte, and vampire-like virals comes across as watered-down Stephen King, short on three-dimensional characters as well as genuine scares. The action shifts from the “present”—five years after the First Colony, a refuge, has fallen to the virals—to Year Zero, when the virus that caused the catastrophe was unleashed, but the value added by the flashbacks isn’t obvious. A prologue surveys the events of The Passage in biblical prose (“And a decree shall go forth from the highest offices that twelve criminals shall be chosen to share of the Zero’s blood, becomingdemons also”), but fails to bring readers adequately up to speed. A dramatis personae at the back listing more than 80 names is scarcely more helpful. 15- to 20-city author tour. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group. (Oct.)

Library Journal

In this second book of his epic vampire trilogy (after The Passage), Cronin once again deposits readers on the front lines of a human-made apocalypse. On the North American continent, a failed government experiment has turned most of humanity into lethal, vampirelike creatures called virals and destroyed the world as we know it. Cronin's story follows the human survivors, moving smoothly between "Year Zero," when the outbreak began, and a period 97 years later, when the remaining pockets of humanity seek not only to survive but also to eradicate the viral plague and defeat a despotic regime that has risen to power. VERDICT Cronin's masterly prose and intricate plotting bring an entire world to life; his cast features both the flawed and the heroic, including an impressive number of strong female characters, and the vast scope of his story begs favorable comparisons to epics such as J.R.R. Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings and Stephen King's The Stand. Readers left hanging at the end of the first book will find some resolution here, but also twists, turns, and new developments that will make them desperate for book three. Strongly recommended for readers who enjoy thrillers, science fiction, and epic adventure tales. [See Prepub Alert, 4/16/12; library marketing.]—Amy Hoseth, Colorado State Univ. Lib., Fort Collins

Kirkus Reviews

Cronin continues the post-apocalyptic--or, better, post-viral--saga launched with 2010's The Passage. The good citizens of Texas might like nothing better than to calve off into a republic and go to war with someone with their very own army and navy, but you wouldn't want to wish the weird near-future world of Cronin's latest on anyone, even if it means that Rick Perry is no longer governor. Readers of The Passage will recall that weird things have happened to humankind thanks to--sigh--a sort-of-zombie-inducing virus unleashed by, yes, sort-of-mad-scientists who were trying to create supersoldiers out of ordinary GIs. You may be forgiven for thinking of The Dirty Dozen at that point in the plot, but the "virals" in question are far badder than Telly Savalas and John Cassavetes. Enter Amy Harper Bellafonte, known Eastwood-esquely as The Girl from Nowhere, whose job it is to save humankind from its own dark devices. Amy's chief butt-kicking sidekick is a virally compromised cutie named Alicia Donadio, "scout sniper of the Expeditionary," who has a weirdly telepathic way of communicating with the baddies. The tale that ensues is pretty generic, in the sense that the zombie/virus/sword-and-sorcery genres allow only so much variation from convention; if you've seen the old Showtime series Jeremiah, then you'll have a good chunk of the plot down. Cronin serves up a largely predictable high-concept blend of The Alamo and The Andromeda Strain, but his yarn has many virtues: It's very well-paced. It's not very pleasant ("A strong smell of urine tanged in her nostrils, coating the membranes of her mouth and throat"), but it's very well-written, far more so than most apocalypse novels, and that excuses any number of sins. And it's always a pleasure to see strong women go storming around as the new sheriffs in town in a world gone bad, even if they're sometimes compelled to drink blood to get their work done. A viral spaghetti Western; it's not Sergio Leone--or, for that matter, Michael Crichton--but it's a satisfying confection.

From the Publisher

“[A] literary superthriller.”—The New York Times Book Review
“An undeniable and compelling epic . . . a complex narrative of flight and forgiveness, of great suffering and staggering loss, of terrible betrayals and incredible hope.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Meet the Author

More by this Author

Justin Cronin is the author of The Passage, Mary and O’Neil (which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize), and The Summer Guest. A Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Rice University, he divides his time between Houston, Texas, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Read an Excerpt

Read on for an excerpt from
T H E T W E LV E
by Justin Cronin
Published by Ballantine Books

Bernard Kittridge, known to the world as “Last Stand in Denver,” realized it was time to leave the morning the power went out.

He wondered what had taken so long. You couldn’t keep a municipal electrical grid running without people to man it, and as far as Kittridge could tell from the nineteenth floor, not a single human soul was left alive in the city of Denver.

Which was not to say he was alone.

He had passed the early hours of the morning—a bright, clear morning in the first week of June, temperatures in the mid-seventies with a chance of blood-sucking monsters moving in toward dusk—sunning on the balcony of the penthouse he had occupied since the second week of the crisis. It was a gigantic place, like an airborne palace; the kitchen alone was the size of Kittridge’s whole apartment. The owner’s taste ran in an austere direction: sleek leather seating groups that were better to look at than sit on, floors of twinkling travertine, small furry rugs, glass tables that appeared to float in space. Breaking in had been surprisingly simple. By the time Kittridge had made his decision, half the city was dead, or fled, or missing.

The cops were long gone. He’d thought about barricading himself into one of the big houses up in Cherry Creek, but based on the things he’d seen, he wanted someplace high. The owner of the penthouse was a man he knew slightly, a regular customer at the store. His name was Warren Filo. As luck would have it, Warren had come into the store the day before the whole thing broke to gear up for a hunting trip to Alaska. He was a young guy, too young for how much money he had— Wall Street money, probably, or one of those high-tech IPOs.

On that day, the world still cheerily humming along as usual, Kittridge had helped Warren carry his purchases to the car. A Ferrari, of course. Standing beside it, Kittridge thought: Why not just go ahead and get a vanity plate that says, DOUCHE BAG 1? A question that must have been plainly written on his face, because no sooner had it crossed his mind than Warren went red with embarrassment. He wasn’t wearing his usual suit, just jeans and a T-shirt with SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT on the front. He’d wanted Kittridge to see the car, that was obvious, but now that he’d allowed this to happen, he’d realized how dumb it was, showing off a vehicle like that to a floor manager at Outdoor World who probably made less than fifty grand a year. (The number was actually forty-six.) Kittridge allowed himself a silent laugh at that—the things this kid didn’t know would fill a book—and he let the moment hang to make the point. I know, I know, Warren confessed. It’s a little much. I told myself I’d never be one of those assholes who drive a Ferrari. But honest to God, you should feel the way she handles.

Kittridge had gotten Warren’s address off his invoice. By the time he moved in—Warren presumably snug and safe in Alaska—it was simply a matter of finding the right key in the manager’s office, putting it into the slot in the elevator panel, and riding eighteen floors to the penthouse. He unloaded his gear. A rolling suitcase of clothes, three lockers of weaponry, a hand-crank radio, night-vision binoculars, flares, a first-aid kit, bottles of bleach, an arc welder to seal the doors of the elevator, his trusty laptop with its portable satellite dish, a box of books, and enough food and water to last a month. The view from the balcony, which ran the length of the west side of the building, was a sweeping 180 degrees, looking toward Interstate 25 and Mile High field. He’d positioned cameras equipped with motion detectors at each end of the balcony, one to cover the street, a second facing the building on the opposite side of the avenue. He figured he’d get a lot of good footage this way, but the money shots would be actual kills. The weapon he’d selected was a Remington bolt-action 700P, .338 caliber— a nice balance of accuracy and stopping power, zeroing out at three hundred yards. To this he’d affixed a digital video scope with infrared. Using the binoculars, he would isolate his target; the rifle, mounted on a bipod at the edge of the balcony, would do the rest.

On the first night, windless and lit by a waning quarter moon, Kittridge had shot seven: five on the avenue, one on the opposite roof, and one more through the window of a bank at street level. It was the last one that made him famous. The creature, or vampire, or whatever it was—the official term was “Infected Person”—had looked straight into the lens just before Kittridge put one through the sweet spot. Uploaded to YouTube, the image had traveled around the globe within hours; by morning all the major networks had picked it up. Who is this man? everyone wanted to know. Who is this fearless-crazy-suicidal man, barricaded in a Denver high-rise, making his last stand?

And so was born the sobriquet, Last Stand in Denver.

From the start he’d assumed it was just a matter of time before somebody shut him down, CIA or NSA or Homeland. He was making quite a stir. Working in his favor was the fact that this same somebody would have to come to Denver to pull the plug. Kittridge’s IP address was functionally untraceable, backstopped by a daisy chain of anonymizer servers, their order scrambled every night. Most were overseas: Russia, China, Indonesia, Israel, Sudan. Places beyond easy reach for any federal agency that might want to pull the plug. His video blog— two million hits the first day—had more than three hundred mirror sites, with more added all the time. It didn’t take a week before he was a bona fide worldwide phenomenon. Twitter, Facebook, Headshot, Sphere: the images found their way into the ether without his lifting a finger. One of his fan sites alone had more than four million subscribers; T-shirts that read, I AM LAST STAND IN DENVER were selling like hotcakes.

His father had always said, Son, the most important thing in life is to make a contribution. Who would have thought Kittridge’s contribution would be video-blogging from the front lines of the apocalypse?

And yet the world went on. The sun still shone. To the west, the mountains shrugged their indifferent rocky bulk at man’s departure. For a while, there had been a lot of smoke—whole blocks had burned to the ground—but now this had dissipated, revealing the desolation with eerie clarity. At night, regions of blackness blotted the city, but elsewhere, lights still glittered in the gloom—flickering streetlamps, filling stations and convenience stores with their distinctive fluorescent glow, porch lights left burning for their owners’ return. While Kittridge maintained his vigil on the balcony, a traffic signal eighteen floors below still dutifully turned from green to yellow to red and then to green again.

He wasn’t lonely. Loneliness had left him, long ago. He was thirty-four years old. A little heavier than he would have liked—with his leg, it was hard to keep the weight off—but still strong. He’d been married once, years before. He remembered that period of his life as twenty months of oversexed, connubial bliss, followed by an equal number of months of yelling and screaming, accusations and counteraccusations, until the whole thing sank like a rock, and he was content, on the whole, that this union had produced no children. His connection to Denver was neither sentimental nor personal; after he’d gotten out of the VA, it was simply where he’d landed. Everyone said that a decorated veteran should have little trouble finding work. And maybe this was true. But Kittridge had been in no hurry. He’d spent the better part of a year just reading—the usual stuff at first, cop novels and thrillers, but eventually had found his way to more substantial books: As I Lay Dying, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby. He’d spent a whole month on Melville, drilling his way through Moby-Dick. Most were books he felt he ought to read, the ones he’d somehow missed in school, but he genuinely liked most of them. Sitting in the quiet of his studio apartment, his mind lost in tales of other lives and times, felt like taking a long drink after years of thirst. He’d even enrolled in a few classes at the community college, working at Outdoor World during the day, reading and writing his papers at nights and on his lunch hour. There was something in the pages of these books that had the power to make him feel better about things, a life raft to cling to before the dark currents of memory washed him downstream again, and on brighter days, he could even see himself going on this way for some time. A small but passable life.

And then, of course, the end of the world had happened.

The morning the electricity failed, Kittridge had finished uploading the previous night’s footage and was sitting on the patio, reading his way through Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities— the English barrister Sydney Carton had just declared his everlasting love for Lucie Manette, the fiancée of the haplessly idealistic Charles Darnay—when the thought touched him that the morning could only be improved by a dish of ice cream. Warren’s enormous kitchen—you could run a five-star restaurant out of the thing—had been, unsurprisingly, almost completely bereft of food, and Kittridge had long since thrown away the moldy take-out containers that had constituted the meager contents of the fridge. But the guy obviously had a weakness for Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie, because the freezer was crammed with the stuff. Not Chunky Monkey or Cherry Garcia or Phish Food or even plain old vanilla. Just Chocolate Fudge Brownie. Kittridge would have liked some variety, considering there was going to be no more ice cream for a while, but with little else to eat besides canned soup and crackers, he was hardly going to complain. Balancing his book on the arm of his chair, he rose and stepped through the sliding glass door into the penthouse.

By the time he reached the kitchen, he had begun to sense that something was off-kilter, although this impression had yet to coalesce around anything specific. It wasn’t until he opened the carton and sank his spoon into a soft mush of melted Chocolate Fudge Brownie that he fully understood.

He tried a light switch. Nothing. He moved through the apartment, testing lamps and switches. All were the same.

He paused in the middle of the living room and took a deep breath. Okay, he thought. Okay. This was to be expected. If anything, this was long overdue. He checked his watch: 9:32 A.M. Sunset was a little after eight. Ten and a half hours to get his ass gone.

He quickly packed a rucksack: protein bars, bottles of water, clean socks and underwear, his first-aid kit, a warm jacket, a bottle of Zyrtec (his allergies had been playing hell with him all spring), a toothbrush, and a razor. For a moment he considered bringing A Tale of Two Cities along, but this seemed impractical, and with a twinge of regret he put it aside. In the bedroom he dressed himself in a wicking T-shirt and cargo pants, topping this off with a hunting vest and a pair of light hikers. For a few minutes he considered which weapons to take before finally settling on a Bowie knife, a pair of Glock 19s, and the retrofit ted Polish AK with the folding stock: useless at any kind of range but reliable close in, which was where he expected to be. The Glocks fit snugly in a cross-draw holster. He filled the pockets of his vest with loaded magazines, clipped the AK to its shoulder sling, hoisted the backpack over his shoulders, and returned to the patio.

That was when he noticed the traffic signal on the avenue. Green, yellow, red. Green, yellow, red. It could have been a fluke, but he somehow doubted it.

They’d found him.

The rope was anchored to a drainage stack on the roof. He stepped into his rappelling harness, clipped in, and swung first his good leg and then his bad one over the railing. Heights were no problem for him, and yet he did not look down. He was perched on the edge of the balcony, facing the windows of the penthouse. From the distance he heard the sound of an approaching helicopter.

Last Stand in Denver, signing off.

With a push he was aloft, his body lobbing down and away. One story, two stories, three, the rope smoothly sliding through his hands: he landed on the balcony of the apartment four floors below. A familiar twang of pain shot upward from his left knee; he gritted his teeth to force it away. The helicopter was closer now, the sound of its blades volleying off the buildings and echoing through the empty streets below. He peeled off his harness, drew one of the Glocks, and fired a single shot to shatter the glass of the balcony door.

The air of the apartment was stale, like the inside of a cabin sealed for winter. Heavy furniture, gilt mirrors, an oil painting of a horse hung over the fireplace; from somewhere wafted the stench of decay. He moved through the becalmed space with barely a glance. At the front door he paused to attach a spotlight to the rail of the AK and stepped out into the hall, headed for the stairs.

In his pocket were the keys to the Ferrari, parked in the building’s underground garage, sixteen floors below. Kittridge shouldered open the door of the stairwell, quickly sweeping the space with the beam from the AK, up and down. Clear. He withdrew a flare from his vest and used his teeth to unscrew the plastic top, exposing the igniter button. With a combustive pop, the flare commenced its rain of sparks. Kittridge held it over the side, taking aim, and let go; if there was anything down there, he’d know it soon. His eyes followed the flare as it made its descent, dragging a contrail of smoke. Somewhere below it nicked the rail and bounced out of sight. Kittridge counted to ten. Nothing, no movement at all.

He began to descend. Three flares later he reached the bottom; a heavy steel door with a push bar and a small square of reinforced glass led to the garage. The floor was littered with trash: pop cans, candy bar wrappers, tins of food. A rumpled bedroll and a pile of musty clothing showed where someone had been sleeping—hiding, as he had.

Kittridge had scouted out the parking garage the day of his arrival. The Ferrari was parked near the southwest corner, a distance of approximately two hundred feet. He probably should have moved it closer to the door, but it had taken him three days to locate Warren’s keys—who kept his car keys in a bathroom drawer?—by which time he’d already barricaded himself inside the penthouse.

The fob had four buttons: two for the doors, one for the alarm, and one that, he hoped, was a remote starter. He pressed this one first.

From deep within the garage came a tart, single-noted bleep, followed by the throaty roar of the Ferrari’s engine. Another mistake: the Ferrari was parked nose to the wall. He should have thought of that. Not only would this slow his escape; if the car had been facing the opposite way, its headlights would have given him a better look at the garage’s interior. All he could make out though the stairwell door’s tiny window was a distant, glowing region where the car awaited, a cat purring in the dark. The rest of the garage was veiled in blackness. The infected liked to hang from things: ceiling struts, pipes, anything with a tactile surface. The tiniest fissure would suffice. When they came, they came from above.

The moment of decision was upon him. Toss more flares and see what happens? Move stealthily through the darkness, seeking cover? Throw open the door and run like hell?

Then, from high overhead, Kittridge heard the creak of an opening stairwell door. Kittridge held his breath and listened, parsing the sound. There were two of them. He stepped back from the door and craned his neck upward. Ten stories above, a pair of red dots were dancing off the walls.

He shoved the door open and ran like hell.

He had made it halfway to the Ferrari when the first viral dropped behind him. There was no time to turn and fire; Kittridge kept on going. The pain in his knee felt like a wick of flame, an ice pick buried to the bone. From the periphery of his senses came a tingling awareness of beings awakening, the garage coming to life. He threw open the door of the Ferrari, tossed the AK and rucksack onto the passenger seat, got in, and slammed the door. The vehicle was so low-slung he felt like he was sitting on the ground. The dashboard, full of mysterious gauges and switches, glowed like a spacecraft’s. Something was missing. Where was the gear-shift?

A wang of metal, and Kittridge’s vision filled with the sight of it. The viral had bounded onto the hood, folding its body into a reptilian crouch. Kittridge’s heart jolted. For a frozen moment it regarded him coolly, a predator contemplating its prey. It was naked except for a wristwatch, a gleaming Rolex fat as an ice cube. Warren? Kittridge thought, for the man had been wearing one like it the day Kittridge had walked him to the car. Warren, old buddy, is that you? Because if it is, I wouldn’t mind a word of advice on how to get this thing in gear.

He discovered, then, with the tips of his fingers, a pair of levers positioned on the undersides of the steering wheel. Paddle shifters. He should have thought of that, too. Up on the right, down on the left, like a motorcycle. Reverse would be a button somewhere on the dash.

The one with the R, genius. That one.

He pushed the button and hit the gas. Too fast: with a squeal of smoking rubber, the Ferrari jolted backward and slammed into a concrete post. Kittridge was hurled back into his seat, then tossed forward again, his head smacking the heavy glass of the side window with an audible thud. His brain chimed like a tuning fork; particles of silver light danced in his eyes. There was something interesting about them, interesting and beautiful, but another voice inside him said that to contemplate this vision, even for a moment, was to die. The viral, having tumbled off the hood, was rising from the floor now. No doubt it would try to take him straight through the windshield.

Two red dots appeared on the viral’s chest.

With a birdlike quickness, the creature broke its gaze from Kittridge and launched toward the soldiers coming through the stairwell door. Kittridge swung the steering wheel and gripped the right paddle, engaging the transmission as he pressed the accelerator. A lurch and then a leap of speed: he was thrust back into his seat as he heard a blast of automatic weapon fire. Just when he thought he’d lose control of the car again he found the straightaway, the walls of the garage streaming past. The soldiers had bought him only a moment; a quick glimpse in the rearview and Kittridge beheld, in the glow of his taillights, what appeared to be the detonation of a human body, an explosive strewing of parts. The second soldier was nowhere visible, though if Kittridge had to bet, he’d say the man was surely dead already, torn to bloody hunks.

He didn’t look back again.

The ramp to the street was located two floors above, at the far end of the garage, which was laid out like a maze; there was no direct route. As Kittridge downshifted into the first corner, engine roaring, tires shrieking, two more virals dropped from the ceiling, into his path. One fell under his wheels with a damp crunch, but the second leapt over the roof of the barreling Ferrari, striding it like a hurdler. Kittridge felt a stab of wonder, even of admiration. In school, Kittridge had learned that you couldn’t catch a fly with your hand because time was different to a fly: in a fly’s brain, a second was an hour, an hour was a year. That’s what the virals were like. Like beings outside of time.

They were everywhere now, emerging from all the hidden places. They flung themselves at the car like suicides, driven by the madness of their hunger. He tore through them, bodies flying, their monstrous, distorted faces colliding with the windshield before being hurled up and over, away. Two more turns and he’d be free, but one was clinging to the roof now. Kittridge braked around the corner, fishtailing on the slick cement, the force of his deceleration sending the viral rolling onto the hood.

A woman: she appeared to be wearing, of all things, a wedding gown. Gouging her fingers into the gap at the base of the windshield, she drew herself onto all fours. Her mouth, a bear trap of blood-lined teeth, was open very wide; a tiny golden crucifix dangled at the base of her throat. I’m sorry about your wedding, Kittridge thought as he drew one of the pistols, steadied it over the steering wheel, and fired through the windshield.

He blasted around the final corner; ahead, a shaft of golden daylight showed the way. Kittridge hit the ramp doing seventy miles an hour, still accelerating. The exit was sealed by a metal grate, but this fact seemed meager, no obstacle at all. Kittridge took aim, plunged the pedal to the floor, and ducked.

A furious crash: for two full seconds, an eternity in miniature, the Ferrari went airborne. It rocketed into the sunshine, concussing the pavement with a bone-jarring bang, sparks flying from the undercarriage. Freedom at last, but now he had another problem; there was nothing to stop him. He was going to careen into the lobby of the bank across the street. As Kittridge bounced across the median, he stamped the brake and swerved to the left, bracing for the impact. But there was no need; with a screech of smoking rubber, the tires bit and held, and the next thing Kittridge knew he was flying down the avenue, into the spring morning.

He had to admit it. What had Warren’s exact words been? You should feel the way she handles.

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Cronin is in complete control of this masterpiece and I was spellbound.

The Twelve begins with a clever prologue. It was delivered much like scriptures and recaps the events from the Passage. This quickly reacquainted me to the world and the characters. As I read I imagined the Omen theme song in my head. The twelve are the original men turned viral when a military experiment "Project Noah" went wrong. They are linked and the parents of all the Virals created. Five years have passed since Amy and her small team defeated Babcock. In this novel Cronin skillfully takes us from year zero to 97 A.V,-five years after book one ended. He masterfully fills in details and introducing new characters. The tale that unfolded sent shivers down my spine as I became fully immersed in the world Cronin created. The characters in this trilogy have been superbly fleshed out. Amy while still a mystery evolves in this second novel. Peter is at a crossroads and is perhaps my favorite character. The underlying connection between them captured my heart. We reconnect with Lila, Wolfgast's ex-wife. She is fractured, unique and has a significant role in book two. Grey who was a sweeper in book one, is back and attempts to change his life. Greer is imprisoned and becomes a seer. Guilder is a new character and straight from your worst nightmare. I still shiver thinking about him and what he is capable of. All of the key characters are reintroduced and become more fleshed out, as we go from past to present. We get a closer look and understanding of the Virals, otherwise known as Dracs, Glowsticks, Jumps, Dopeys, Smokes and Flyers. We begin to understand their hierarchy and what has become of their humanity. Then there is the twelve and there leader Zero. I can hear them in my head, "I am Morrison-Chavez-Baffles-Turrell-Winston-Sosa-Echolos-Lambright-Martinez-Reinhardt-Carter." "Come to me." *shivers* There is a very helpful guide in the back of the book that lists all of the characters and briefly describes them. The world Cronin has created is horrifying, unimaginable and yet I believed. Cronin is in complete control of this masterpiece and I was spellbound. Not since Stephen King's The Stand have I been so blown away. While the tale doesn't move in a linear fashion he skillfully takes us from past, present to future giving me a 3-D panoramic view of the world. It is quite clear he knows the terrain of the Midwest and with his pen; he brought its vast grasslands to life. He has crafted a tale, which completely enthralled me. It also scared the crap out of me. It made me question the human mind, scientific advancements and mans quest for power. How would we survive this world? It also inspired me, and gave me hope as humankind survived, adapted and never surrendered. The Homeland and all that it stood for frightened me more than the Virals. I could not wrap myself around the horrors Guilder had created. This tale ended on a slightly high note, and felt complete. Cronin left us with the knowledge that a new battle would begin soon...Eep! I cannot wait. Flyers! I really feel like my review does not even begin to give The Twelve and author the praise it deserves. Cronin is pure genius and I would love to have a coffee and a conversation with him. I honestly think, he sees the characters in his mind and knows exactly what they are doing, even when they are not present within the pages he is writing. He blurs the lines of reality, bringing this post-apocalyptic nightmare to life. If you know me, you kno

39 out of 47 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted October 19, 2012

Amazing book! Id give it 6 stars if i could.

I don't even know where to begin on how much I loved this book. I've been up two days straight reading it. I think this author is a brilliant writer. There are authors who are good story tellers, and there are authors who are good writers.....and then there is the rare combination of authors who are both. Justin Cronin falls into that rare category. I definitely reccommend this book to anyone who loves to read. Regardless of what kind of genre you are interested in, I think you will still enjoy this book. It has action, adventure, sci-fi, fantasy, realism, and even a little romance, all rolled in between the covers of this book. :)

12 out of 16 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted November 1, 2012

Bored

I loved the first book, but this one has not grabbed me at all. It is random and disjointed. A waste of time and money.

10 out of 19 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted October 28, 2012

Ok

There are too many characters to keep up with. I really enjoyed the first book. I probably will not waste my time with the third book because theTwelve left the characters flat and I no longer care what happens to them.

10 out of 18 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted October 18, 2012

Love this series

By far the best series I have ever read.

10 out of 14 people found this review helpful.

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Wildcatfan4life

Posted November 10, 2012

While The Twelve was a bit difficult to read based on how Cronin

While The Twelve was a bit difficult to read based on how Cronin jumped from one time period to another, I still loved it. I actually liked it a bit better than The Passage. While I also loved the Passage, it was a bit slow from time ot time. I guess that's to be expected in a book that's almost 900 pages long. I never thought The Twelve was slow at any point. There was a lot more action and the original characters was developed even more. Overall, I loved it and can't wait for the last installment.

8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted December 10, 2012

Not for the simple minded reader

Cronin creates another word world with his descriptions of characters and places. Although not as good as the first book he leaves the reader wanting to know what happens to the heroes. If you have no imagination, visualization skills, or above a 7th grade reading level, DONT BUY the book. If you enjoy using your mind and intelligence then you are in for a great read.

7 out of 11 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted October 22, 2012

Second book picks up and expands on first

There are new characters, but really not new. The book takes up with some minor characters from the first and expands on their role and their connections with the people we learned about in the first book. While it is hard spending less time with those we became invested in, the book is the second in a planned trilogy so can can expect that there is still some place setting that needs to be done. I enjoyed the way that the new people were fitted into the overall story. It is much deeper and layered than a simple survive in a changed world. The history and world making is well done and I cannot wait until the third one comes out.

7 out of 10 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted November 4, 2012

Anonymous

I liked this one as much as the first. Its hard for me to believe some of the negative reviews posted. I personally think he writes as well as King.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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nightfuries

Posted December 5, 2012

I loved this book. I agree it was a bit slow and did spend too m

I loved this book. I agree it was a bit slow and did spend too much time on some characters that were not heard of again ( most likely taken up or killed outright) but for me, it was just as suspensful as the first book. Especially Sarah's and Amy's journey. I cannot wait for the final book to find out how Lisha and Peter's character plays out.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted November 6, 2012

Gripping

But not as good as The Passage, in my opinion, but still couldnt put it down

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted October 20, 2012

Slightly Disappointed

After The Passage, i expected...hoped that The Twelve would be able to deliver a story line as intense and spellbinding as the first. The Twelve didn't even hit the halfway mark for me. Each one of these books should have the potential to stand on their own, this one definately does not. It has been so long since I read The Passage that I often found myself referring to it so that I had a clue who a character was...orThe why I cared. It was a lot of money for a sad let down afterba long wait. The book itself is only approximately 1/2 the pages of The Passage. Don't pass it up, however. It is interesting to see what our beloved characters are up to 5 years later, and there are a few, though not nearly enough heart stopping action scenes, and of course it leaves us with a huge cliff hanger. Now, just to wait 2 more years to finish a trilogy that in all honesty should only have been two books....ahhh the life of a fan for life, lol!

4 out of 9 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted October 19, 2012

Not nearly as enjoyable as his 1st book; "The Passage."

I'm a hundred pages in and thinking i might just stop. A big dissapointment...

4 out of 25 people found this review helpful.

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rogosoko

Posted November 27, 2012

Great Story

A very good, well written story. Characters are complex yet easy to follow. Looking forward to #3.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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emilyfan76

Posted November 14, 2012

A worthy sequel to a great book. I love how some of the charact

A worthy sequel to a great book. I love how some of the characters that were barely mentioned in The Passage playe a much more prominent role in this book.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted October 30, 2012

Worth it

Great read. Answers some questions from the first book yet brings in a whole set of new ones. Curious to see what book three will bring

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted October 25, 2012

Chilling

Great story, grabs you and won't let go. Loved all the characters and the connections Cronin created. Disappointed I cannot find when the final book will be out.

3 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted October 23, 2012

Not as good as the passage

I enjoyed the passage so much and so my expectations were very high for this book. It was good. I enjoyed catching up with my favourite characters 5 yrs later. If you enjoyed the first book as much as i did, then buy this one.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted October 21, 2012

Well worth reading

While not quite as good as the first book, it is beautifully written. Cronin's prose is often poetic and really bribgs the world he created to life. It can take a while to get used to the shifts in the timeline. Stick with it, you won't regret it.

3 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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TheStuffofSuccess

Posted January 17, 2013

The Twelve is book 2 of the Passage Trilogy. I read the Passage

The Twelve is book 2 of the Passage Trilogy. I read the Passage a while ago and when The Twelve came out I just had to go through The Passage again. The Twelve is very interesting without a dull moment. The first &quot;half&quot; of the book bounces from 5 years after The Passage back to the original period of infection. Characters from the first book come back so we can see what happened to them approximately 100 years ago. How did all these changes take place? So we jump from 5 years after the Passage back to approx. 100 years in the past - then about 75 years forward then back to the future period which finishes out the 2nd half of the book. The initial jumping around in time took some effort to follow but it was ALL relevant and necessary. How had the Virals survived through this century? What sustained them? For what purpose? Could they be stopped? Many of the characters from The Passage are also in The Twelve and I am not sure you could follow The Twelve without having first read book 1 of the trilogy. Are there others like Amy or Alicia? Sadly, I now need to wait for book 3 to see what's next. There are many books about creatures that were humans who had been infected by some virus - manmade or otherwise. But this series truly sets itself apart by the depth of the infection through time, space, and numbers. If you are looking for something to scare the daylights out of you for days on end - this series is for you!

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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